Currently the value of bitcoin, ethereum and other assets marked $153.78 billion point which is 13 percent higher that last week, 67 percent over the last month and an incredible 1,240 percent enhancement since the previous year. XRP prices – the cryptocurrency of the Ripple network – have also surged more than 40% due to intensive buying from Korean won trading pairs prompting another round of predictions that Ripple is about to make a big splash into the Chinese markets in the nearest future. The data once again confirms steady growth of the cryptocurrency market.

Another important thing should be mentioned: the new record comes during a trading session where were no individual all-time highs for most popular cryptocurrencies. At $4,185 and $318, bitcoin and ether respectively were edging up, though still short of their highs above $4,500 and $400, respectively. Which is more, the new high was set when there were no significant gains in litecoin, monero and some other popular alternative cryptocurrencies among traders.

The new record has triggered reactions from cryptocurrency experts remaining quite optimistic about the market development.

Sergey Nazarov, Founder and CEO, SmartContract.com, said: “$150 billion is extremely conservative when you look at the back-end infrastructure that blockchain-based systems are set to replace or completely reform in the next five years. What is the value of the systems that currently secure every institutional securities transaction, insurance transaction, and trade finance transaction worth? Much more than $150 billion. The World Economic Forum arrived at its valuation of 10% global GDP by 2027 on blockchain-based systems, which is in the trillions, and many of those same global thought leaders now feel those projections were conservative.”

Daniel Zakrisson, Co-Founder, Cofound.it, also commented on the issue: “In all networked systems, there is a point when the value of being in the system becomes larger than what each individual participant puts in — the inflection point when explosive growth begins.”

“The crypto market cap reaching $150 billion market today underlines the fact that we are quickly approaching this point; the number of crypto market participants is growing exponentially and the first use cases are reaching mainstream adoption. One of these use cases is early stage venture funding, this summer there has been more venture funding raised via blockchain token sales than via traditional early stage funding in the IT sector on a global level. This is a movement that has just started but that is already shifting the balance and structure of the incumbent venture capital ecosystem.”

“If market prices retain any useful informational content, which theory suggests they do, then the 10x run-up in the crypto market capitalization over the last year signals there is something important taking place. Whether that something ends up being radically transformational, or simply a speculative delusion is yet to be seen: The cool thing is that we’re seeing history unfold,” reacted Rob Viglione, Co-Founder, ZenCash.

Most financial analysts remain optimistic about the future of the digital currency. Its price has already surged higher than it was predicted by the head of technical strategy at Goldman Sachs, Sheba Jafari, who suggested that the digital currency would rise to about $4,000 by the end of 2017.

According to forecasts by RT’s Keiser Report host and cryptocurrency enthusiast, Max Keiser, the price of bitcoin is likely to increase to $5,000 this year, owing to the growing adoption of bitcoin worldwide, rising demand from investors, and the upcoming SegWit activation. During the previous two months, Keiser continuously cited reasons that could drive bitcoin value to rise above $4,000 and potentially to the $5,000 level.

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